


A day in the afterlife

by sevenofspade



Category: Ancient Egyptian RPF, Ancient History RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-29 10:43:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenofspade/pseuds/sevenofspade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the days before, Merit Ptah was the foremost healer in the land.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A day in the afterlife

**Author's Note:**

  * For [penombrelilas (crookedspoon)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy reading this!

When Merit Ptah was just an apprentice in the great temple, the life that is granted to us after death did not exist. No one save Pharaoh walked the ways of the dead. There was no tribunal of the worthy, for Pharaoh is always worthy.

In those times, perhaps Pharaoh was less worthy than ours is, for when Queen Hatshepsut dies, she will sit with the gods and the Pharaohs of old merely sit among the stars. It is unfair, you say, but I have known many Pharaohs in my time and she is the greatest of them all.

Hush now. This is not her story.

Merit Ptah was an apprentice to a man who was neither the greatest teacher of his generation nor the worst, merely average, as this is a true story and those have no need of embellishment. She studied his teachings for years until she had none left to learn save one.

“Teach me,” she said, much as you now do, “what becomes of us after the breath of life has left our body.”

And so he told her. He told her of the unlife and the grey dark beyond, the great fading of all mortals. Pharaoh is no mortal, but a god clothed in flesh and the unraveling of self does not affect gods. Gods fade only through oblivion, when no one knows their names but the desert sands.

That is the function of the ba. To pull close every utterance of your name and bind you to the life after death, that you may live forever.

That is what the ba does and not what the ba is. The ba is you as you are now, all your thoughts, all your memories, all the things that make you you.

That which makes us live and love and breathe is the ka. It is the ka that fades away into the dark without the ba to sustain it. Ba and ka together is the akh and that is what you are now and will be again, if you are found worthy.

But you know this already.

In those days, there was no ba for people like me. Pharaoh alone had that honour.

Yes, I have said this before, but I am old and you will listen.

It bothered Merit Ptah that there was nothing after death, save for Pharaoh. Is the smith not worthy? She thought. Or the potter or the hairdresser? The builder or the priest? The trader or the scribe? The mother or the father? The architect or the healer? Our glories are small, but they are glories, nonetheless. I would have us be worthy of being worthy.

We are not Pharaoh, but we are subject to him and the gods. I would not have us be anything less than what we deserve.

You see, Merit Ptah had this flaw that is a quality: she thought the best of people, always. In her eyes, all were worthy, be they miller or archivist or stone mason.

And so, she decided to petition the gods themselves.

The gods lived closer to this realm, then. You did not have to die entirely to get there nor die at all, if you knew what you were doing.

Merit Ptah knew what she was doing.

No, I will not tell you how she did it. It is dangerous and will not work anymore. The gods do not like interlopers.

I said, I will not tell you.

No.

Stop asking.

You’re worse than your mother was when I told her.

Fine. Now sit and stay quiet.

So Merit Ptah waited until she was as old and grey as I am now and went out into the desert. She traveled far and wide until, at last, she came to the Oasis. This was no ordinary oasis and had not been for quite some time.

You see, when the world was young and gods walked among us still, Ra in all his glory had once come to rest in this oasis. He found it so charming that he decided to return, day after day after day. He came often and a woman noticed. She was not the only one, but she was the only one who saw this not as something to view with awe or fear, but saw it as it was. An opportunity.

An opportunity for everything. Listen closely to this tale, it will become relevant later.

So the woman went to the oasis, and made magic there. She brought forth not just a snake, but the essence of a snake: slippery and fast, but, above all, poisonous, even to the gods themselves. 

I see you are starting to understand where this story is going.

When Ra came to the oasis that day, the snake slithered after him as its mistress had bid it and Ra was bitten, as she wanted. Ra tried to heal himself but he could not. In her wisdom, for the making of the serpent, the woman had used dirt, her own blood so that it was hers and Ra’s spittle so that it was his. Ra is powerful but even he cannot undo what his magic has wrought. The snake was his and he had to live with the pain.

Venom coursed through his veins, with none of his entourage able to help. Ra was more powerful than them yet could not strike down what his magic had wrought.

At long last, when Ra thought that he would die and this world’s light with him, the woman stepped forward. She did not tell of what she had done, but brought forth a deal: a name for a healing.

And Ra? Ra was in such pain that he could not think clearlyt and agreed.

He gave her his name and with his power and she received it and godhood alongside it. So when she spoke the words to bring the venom forth, she had Ra’s power and her own and the snake could do nothing but obey.

With Ra healed and the woman a goddess, I end here this tale until it is time to pick it up again.

I will tell you this more, that you may wonder: the woman’s name was Isis. This is not the story you were told when you were young. In that, she is a goddess born.

Let this be a lesson to you. Stories lie.

From all this, the oasis had became something more than just a place and the snake more than a construct. They were both conduits to godhood. Merit Ptah knew this. She found the snake where it lay in the grass and offered it a deal: a death for a life.

If snakes could laugh, this one would have. It would have given her that for no price at all he said, but he agreed readily.

So the snake bit her. As she faded into the grey beyond, Merit Ptah found before her a path.

I will not bore you with what she found along the path. You know this, as everyone does. It is the path mortals walk now after death.

In those days, of course, no mortal had yet set foot on it, so when Merit Ptah came before the gods on their thrones, it came as quite a shock.

There was shouting. There was threats. There was arm waving and panic. There was confusion and puzzlement. There was wonder and, perhaps, awe. There were enquiries, mostly from Toth. There was also, sitting quietly in the corner, Isis’ smile.

At long last, Ra asked for silence.

Merit Ptah, who had spoken not one word so far, said to the gods in all their majesty, “I come to you with a request.”

As you might guess, it did not go over so well.

When the gods had stopped shouting, or laughing, as the case may have been, Isis had not stopped smiling and Toth asked Merit Ptah what her request was.

Merit Ptah looked up at the gods in their splendour and said, “I would have us be your equals. Give us mortals an afterlife, such as Pharaoh enjoys. We deserve nothing less.”

This time the gods were stunned into silence. There was this woman, old and frail and bent with age, and she presumed to tell them what to do. No. They could not allow it. They would not allow it.

Maat spoke then, while the others seethed and Isis smiled. She asked Merit Ptah to plead her cause. 

She did, much I do myself now. She told them of small triumphs that meant the world, of the glory in your child’s laughter, knowing they laughed because you, of the pride there is in coaxing health out of sickness, in building a home every day, in living well until the end.

Maat listened and the gods quietened.

When Merit Ptah was done, Maat asked the assembly of gods what they thought. One at a time, please.

Nekheny, you know him as Horus, refused outright. Pharaoh was enough, he said and at least Pharaoh was of their blood. He would protect the mortals in life, but he would not protect them in death.

When he was done, Toth argued that humans were excellent scribes and that he could use new recordkeepers himself. The gods sighed and groaned at that. Toth’s passion for books was as well known then as it is now.

And the gods fought.

Hathor looked forward to it and Osiris longed for company.

And the gods fought and fought and fought.

Anubis said that, at least, it would give him something to do.

And still, the gods fought.

Seth was silent, but his smile was wild. All others protested, Ra chief among them. No mortal, he said, was worthy of the life he himself enjoyed. If mortals were, he scoffed, they would know.

And then Isis coughed, politely. 

She said nothing, but silence still fell. Seth smiled at her, teeth gleaming in a desert sun that had no place to be in this place below the sand, and she smiled back.

Much was said in those smiles Merit Ptah felt, but she lacked the knowledge to know what.

Maat stood, in the silence of the assembly. Above her, stars that do not exist shone brightly, in patterns that no night in the mortal world has ever seen. She laid down her judgement thus. Mortals are no more worthy as a whole than unworthy. Each must be judged on their own merit. Let them come.

There were cheers and there was gnashing of teeth of teeth then, but Maat’s word is law, above even Ra’s.

Seth laughed like a desert storm, Toth started drawing up working shifts, Horus flew off in a rage, Hathor clapped her hands delightedly, Osiris found scales, Anubis made monsters for the judging and still, Isis smiled.

Merit Ptah found herself drifting away then, back to the living world. On her way back, she passed the snake and asked for its name. Apep, he told her and he would have cursed her for taking life out of death and turning his life into death, but she was kind and so he gave her life until death.

As she climbed the path, back into life, Merit Ptah met the souls of the dead and knew she had done a good thing, no matter the cost to her.

This is how this story ends, with life after death for the worthy and life until death for Merit Ptah.

It is not everyone who has life until death.

Think about it.

It will come to you.

And if not now, then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow then the day after, and if not then nor any of the days, call on me to tell the story to your daughter and her daughter after her and their daughters after them, for all the days to come and all the ages of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> The tale of Isis, Ra and the snake can be found [here](http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/leg/leg06.htm). I want to say it’s one of the oldest appearances of Isis in Egyptian lore, because that's how it was presented when I first read it, but I cannot find a source to check for sure.
> 
> The story of Merit Ptah reflects the evolving conception of their afterlife that the Ancient Egyptians had. Between the Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom, the Egyptian afterlife and all its trappings (Ma’at’s feather, Ammut et al) became available to everyone, not just Pharaoh. Hatshepsut is from the Late Kingdom. By that time, Isis is firmly entrenched as Osiris’ sister.


End file.
